French iPhone launch; potential Nokia dispute; Black Friday visits

The iPhone's launch in France was marked by large lines and a VIP visit. Meanwhile, Nokia may square off against Apple if it releases a touchscreen phone, and Apple has overtaken Dell in Black Friday site traffic.

iPhone receives warm welcome in French launch

Despite ongoing strikes in the transportation system, Apple's final European iPhone launch for 2007 created an extra-wide line running more than 100 meters (328 feet) from the central Orange store on the Champs Elysées in Paris, according to one report from enthusiasts standing in line for PCInpact.

A VIP section triggered much attention from the press, though only one recognizable figure -- Orange France president Louis-Pierre Wenes -- has so far been identified in the mix.

But that executive has reason to be happy, says the chief of Orange's parent company France Telecom. President Didier Lombard has told journalists at a press conference that he expects between 400,000 and 500,000 iPhones to be sold in France during its first year on sale, though his company has not revealed how many of the phones it expects will sell unlocked and thus lose out on subscription revenue.

The exclusivity deal for the iPhone that allows Orange to be the sole provider of locked phones will last "more than two years," Wenes says.

Analyst Richard Windsor of the British financial firm Nomura issued an early warning on Wednesday that Nokia's planned upgrade to the Symbian Series 60 OS to add a touchscreen interface could spawn a legal dispute between the Finland-based company and Apple when it appears in late 2008.

The Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker owns about 200 patents related to the iPhone and has already vowed to protect them in the event that a rival's design infringes on the technology -- which may be likely. A technology demonstration by Nokia in August appeared to imitate the iPhone's photo browsing and other aspects of the Apple touchscreen interface.

Still, the potential cost of a protracted legal battle may force Nokia to license patents or settle with Apple in 2009 to allow any new smartphones to co-exist with the iPhone, Windsor says.

Apple overtakes Dell in Black Friday website visits

Roughly 1.4 million people visited Apple.com the day following Thanksgiving, notes a ComScore study.

Nicknamed Black Friday for its reputation of bringing stores from losses to profits (or black ink), the period represented a 111 percent jump in traffic to Apple's site from the year before and far eclipsed both the growth and numbers for its frequent opponent Dell. The Texas-based Windows PC maker grew just 29 percent and drew only 1.3 million visitors.

Apple dropped iPod and Mac prices on that day, accounting for at least part of the increase.

Carphone Warehouse caught misleading iPhone buyers

A secret investigation by the BBC has found that Carphone Warehouse is frequently misstating the iPhone's true costs in an attempt to boost commission sales.

Customers are often inaccurately told that only the phone retailer's insurance will adequately cover the device from theft or damage despite O2 offering a similar level of protection.

Prospective shoppers were also falsely warned that they would need to not only buy a new phone if the old one is lost but set up a new 18-month contract, raising the effective price from £269 to £630.

Carphone Warehouse claims the complaints only represent a small portion of its stores and that the investigation doesn't reveal systemic abuse of customer trust.

Apple provides 1.0.3 update for iPod classic, 3G nano

Apple on Wednesday released its 1.0.3 update for the iPod classic and the third-generation iPod nano.

Available through iTunes, the firmware patches are only listed as "bug fixes" but are believed to address problems with games altering song play counts on both media players. The iPod classic's implementation of Cover Flow and the iPod nano's clock have also seen minor updates.

1) Apple does not own 200 patents on the iPhone. It has *applied* for 200 patents. It hasn't got them yet.

2) Nokia and Symbian and for that matter others too have been doing touch screen phones and PDAs since the early 1990s and even though Psion (Symbian's original company) was at times a bit dim, I'd not think they were that dim as to not patent.

I'd imagine both companies have looked at each other's patents and decided which apply or how to get around them and that neither want to get into a Qualcomm v Broadcomm style embargo situation in America or Europe.

Analyst Richard Windsor of the British financial firm Nomura issued an early warning on Wednesday that Nokia's planned upgrade to the Symbian Series 60 OS to add a touchscreen interface could spawn a legal dispute between the Finland-based company and Apple when it appears in late 2008.

The Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker owns about 200 patents related to the iPhone and has already vowed to protect them in the event that a rival's design infringes on the technology -- which may be likely. A technology demonstration by Nokia in August appeared to imitate the iPhone's photo browsing and other aspects of the Apple touchscreen interface.

Still, the potential cost of a protracted legal battle may force Nokia to license patents or settle with Apple in 2009 to allow any new smartphones to co-exist with the iPhone, Windsor says.

LOL! I doubt Apple has more than a couple patents (and it's more likely applied for and not received) related to their touchscreen ... and even those are in doubt because touchscreens and multiple touch input are nothing new.

in regards to the carphone warehouse report... what a surprise BBC at it again, nothing but bad press for Apple whenever they possibly can. The flip side to this story is the utter bollox spouted by the competition trying to keep customers from jumping ship. But not a mention i doubt.

I'm really not fond of the BBC, they used to be great, but now its just a propaganda machine for the government and microsoft.

Next they will ask for a license fee for every computer in the UK. They will have to prise it from my fingers.

1) Apple does not own 200 patents on the iPhone. It has *applied* for 200 patents. It hasn't got them yet.

2) Nokia and Symbian and for that matter others too have been doing touch screen phones and PDAs since the early 1990s and even though Psion (Symbian's original company) was at times a bit dim, I'd not think they were that dim as to not patent.

(1) is absolutely true, and a good point. Re. (2), how many patents have Nokia/Symbian applied for, and how many have they got?

Apple on Wednesday released its 1.0.3 update for the iPod classic and the third-generation iPod nano.

Available through iTunes, the firmware patches are only listed as "bug fixes" but are believed to address problems with games altering song play counts on both media players. The iPod classic's implementation of Cover Flow and the iPod nano's clock have also seen minor updates.

When are they going to release a firmware upgrade that eliminates the irritating interface lag? A 1-second delay when moving from the Podcast menu to the Music menu may not seem like much on paper, but in the real world, it's really frustrating and makes me want to fix my 4G iPod.

Apple on Wednesday released its 1.0.3 update for the iPod classic and the third-generation iPod nano.

Available through iTunes, the firmware patches are only listed as "bug fixes" but are believed to address problems with games altering song play counts on both media players. The iPod classic's implementation of Cover Flow and the iPod nano's clock have also seen minor updates.

I'm really not fond of the BBC, they used to be great, but now its just a propaganda machine for the government and microsoft.

Stop it please, my sides are splitting! The BBC a propaganda machine for the UK government! Love it. Especially after they kept replaying that quote from Parliament yesterday where the Lib leader compares Gordon Brown to Mr Bean. Yep, they're the Fox News of the Labour party!

Personally I think the BBC's "anti-Apple" stance is really a reflection of the country as a whole. Face facts, apart from the iPod Britain isn't a very "pro-Apple" place, especially compared to the USA for example.

LOL! I doubt Apple has more than a couple patents (and it's more likely applied for and not received) related to their touchscreen ... and even those are in doubt because touchscreens and multiple touch input are nothing new.

Visits? Yeah, I went to the Apple site, nothing I wanted was on sale.

Which is very likely to be the same thing many visitors to Dell would say after all iPods aren't sold at Dell

Stop it please, my sides are splitting! The BBC a propaganda machine for the UK government! Love it. Especially after they kept replaying that quote from Parliament yesterday where the Lib leader compares Gordon Brown to Mr Bean. Yep, they're the Fox News of the Labour party!

Personally I think the BBC's "anti-Apple" stance is really a reflection of the country as a whole. Face facts, apart from the iPod Britain isn't a very "pro-Apple" place, especially compared to the USA for example.

I'm actually in a line of business which has been reported on with a government slant for over decade. Majority of what they say about some of the stuff I have been involved in is nothing but complete and utter lies, lies with an agenda.
Also, a friend is a news reporter and even she has written more than dubious reports.
Also, have you noticed how many reports there are for 'alcohol awareness' recently, this corresponds with Gordon Browns tough alcohol policy.
Also, with the recent smoking ban, almost EVERY story was how people (even smokers) "thought it was great" , disregarding all reports of 100's of thousands of people actually pretty pissed off about it, the BBC helped force a smooth transition of a change in the law.
Also, EVERYTHING is linked to climate change recently (apparently) and although this is good for the world as a whole, I feel it is not the role of the BBC to enforce environmental ethics. Of-course as much as it seems the BBC is playing the 'good guy', it has as much to do with increasing taxation on flights/cars/alcohol (an easy target in todays climate, excuse the pun).
Oh and many many other things! I could go on forever. I'm not a great fan of the new nanny state, I just want plain facts and an impartial point of view like the BBC used to do so well.

So much social engineering is pumped out of the airways its shocking, most people just lap it up and believe every word, even my mum will believe the TV over me when they are reporting on my line of work!
And to bring this back on topic, the BBC who are 'meant' to be impartial have all but forgotten the Mac in internet media support, have used real audio/windows media rubbish, but never quicktime.
The only reason their new iPlayer is 'possibly' going to be available on the mac is because thousands of people signed a petition!
95% of all stories are anti apple, while this may mirror UK feelings (as you said) it makes you wonder which came first the chicken or the egg?!
Irrelevant of "reflection of the country as a whole" the BBC stance 'should' be impartial, which i am seeing less and less signs of recently.

With the mobile industry being one of the UK biggest industries it makes you wonder if the BBC are 'protecting' British business interests (including their own, somehow the BBC have to fit into the digital future), but the BBC wouldn't be so underhand? Not the dear old Beeb. or would they...

The UK has much more at stake than the US, Apple are going head to head with Vodaphone, the worlds biggest mobile telecommunications company and UK owned. Vodaphone/Symbian/ARM/Virgin/BT... Europe in general pretty much owns the mobile world right now, but it all could change, there is much at stake.
Now I dont know for sure if the BBC are deliberately painting a 'not so rosy' picture of Apple, but from my dealings with them, it might not be far from the truth.

When are they going to release a firmware upgrade that eliminates the irritating interface lag? A 1-second delay when moving from the Podcast menu to the Music menu may not seem like much on paper, but in the real world, it's really frustrating and makes me want to fix my 4G iPod.

I just updated my Classic, and it seems to have improved the lag quite a bit. For me, the worst part was just after choosing an artist. The whole interface would freeze as it tried to load the album art for every album. Three or four seconds at times, just to be able to scroll down to the appropriate album. That seems to have been fixed in my brief tests thus far.

Also, when you eject now, not only does it properly inform you that you can unplug it while it restarts (it already did that on the Classic), but it now also gives you a progress bar indicating when the restart will complete. Minor thing, but cool nonetheless.

Apple can't possibly own all variations on touch screens, and there's plenty of prior art on several variations. Without actual details of what Nokia is doing, it's a bit much to say that Apple can legitimately pursue Nokia.